


love in the time of the apocalypse

by Utopiste



Series: marvel femslash bingo 2020 [1]
Category: Marvel 616, New Mutants (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Also Lockheed Is A Fennec Because Nausicaa, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Basically Mad Max: Fury Road meets X-Men meets The 100 meets A Couple Ghibli Movies, F/F, Prompt Fic, Prompts: Cli-Fi & Enigma, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Utopiste/pseuds/Utopiste
Summary: Insight being twenty-twenty, as Kitty lies here with the sharp end of a sword against her throat, she thinks she should have seen this coming. Then the nomad crouches closer-- behind her half-broken gas mask she is snarling inches away from Kitty’s face with narrowed eyes-- and all Kitty can think about is that she’s beautiful.
Relationships: Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin
Series: marvel femslash bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916707
Kudos: 25





	love in the time of the apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you see hozier at a concert and he says "i wrote this song about love in the time of the apocalypse" and it grips your feelings so much you have to write a fanfic named after it 2 whole years later. and that's valid
> 
> this was written for the 2020 marvel femslash bingo (check out @marvelfemslashbingo on tumblr) for the prompts "cli fi" and "enigma"! this is unbetaed and i wrote it in a week where i had migraines every other day so yeah but also i love katyana with all of my heart along with the bingo card i received from @gayoccultism so...

When the White Queen told her about the job, she rambled on about it being an in-and-out, grab-and-dash supply run, to the point where Kitty should have been suspicious. She would have been, too, if she hadn’t gotten used to Emma Frost’s strange brand of management. So it sounded easy: avoid any nomad or local, phase inside the bunker, grab the medicine, come back to the colony-- come back to Krakoa. 

Of course, Frost conveniently forgot to mention the very blonde, very angry girl with the huge sword guarding the so-called _abandoned bunker._

Insight being twenty-twenty, as Kitty lies here with the sharp end of a sword against her throat, she thinks she should have seen this coming. Then the nomad crouches closer, and behind her half-broken gas mask she is snarling inches away from Kitty’s face with narrowed eyes-- and all Kitty can think about is that she’s _beautiful._

Go figure.

“Hi,” Kitty tries. “I think we started on the wrong foot.”

Then the acid rain starts. 

When she was younger, and Ororo was teaching her everything there is to know about the world post-apocalypse, the first thing Kitty learned was about the purple rains. She knew of them, of course: how could she not, when they happened so often? She knew they hurt to stand under, but that once one found shelter they were quite beautiful, purple drops glittering, light shimmering and bouncing off scalding toxic water. Kitty, at twelve, was very much the same as she is at seventeen: eager to be dazzled into finding dangerous, life-threatening things _pretty._

So Ororo asked her to remember them for what they were.

 **acid rain,** _/ˈasɪd/reɪn/, noun:_

a rainfall made so acidic by atmospheric pollution that it causes living things harm, chiefly in environments such as forests and lakes. The main cause is the century-long industrial burning of coal and other fossil fuels, the waste gases from which contain sulfur and nitrogen oxides which combine with atmospheric water to form acids. Usually lasting between four hours and a couple of days, the longest acid rain recorded yet in post-human history went up to a week and a half without stopping.

 _also known as:_ purple rain

“Look, I get that I didn’t make the best first impression,” Kitty calls out from outside the bunker door the feral blonde girl instantly closed on her, “but I think leaving me stranded out here to die is a bit of an overreaction.”

Kitty listens closely to the noise inside, not really expecting an answer - the nomad is yet to tell Kitty a single word - but trying to gauge what is happening in there. After a beat where the shuffling stops, though, a rough, accented voice says: “Find your own bunker to die in. I’m not sharing.” 

Jerk.

Above Kitty, the crooked roof that had been holding its own valiantly under the rain creaks. She is, like, ninety-three percent sure this noise isn’t supposed to be happening. On the one hand, she was born years after the Men Who Killed the World died themselves, years after the weather shift and the apocalypse, so she hasn’t really ever had the traditional use for an abandoned shed in an overgrown garden. She assumes from old movies Logan showed her that they were mostly used to get laid or get murdered. 

On the other hand, she did stay in a lot of abandoned sheds, broken-in garages and the odd ravaged house out back when she was travelling with Logan. A lot of squeaks, a few whimpers, sometimes even a windy howl or a crash-- they all sounded scarier than they really were. This one, though, was not your run-of-the-mill creepy old shed noise. It is bad news. Kitty is an expert in _them._

Seven feet or so next to the gaping hole in the wall Kitty had come in from to hide out after the bunker-dwelling, feral girl shut her out, the bunker door glints under the acid rain. 

She tugs her hoodie on before she slides her right hand inside her oversized jacket and wraps her fingers around her Swiss army knife. 

“Alright, that’s it. You attacked me on sight, you threatened my life, you ignored my pun about finding hole-in-the-wall places to hang out in, and you stole Lockheed when you got inside the bunker. I wanted to deal with it like a gentleman, but honestly? You’re a jerk.”

The girl doesn’t answer, but it’s alright: Kitty already turned intangible and started sprinting towards the bunker.

At least her split-second slack-jawed look as Kitty phases through the closed door is satisfying.

“Now,” Kitty says evenly as she takes off her gas mask, “give me back my pet.”

**nomad,** _/ˈnəʊmad/, noun:_

  1. member of a people that travels from place to place to scrounge for leftover resources (food, drink, oil, or even temporary housing) and has no permanent home (i.e. colony) (ex: "the withering of their grasslands forced the nomads of the Wasteland to descend into Fury Road") 
  2. a person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer. ("The blonde girl was a nomad who had finally taken root in an abandoned bunker")



_also known as:_ a wanderer, a roamer, a wayfarer

Two hours later, with the acid rain still raging on above them, Lockheed is happily lying belly up on a strange, murderous girl’s thigh, his tiny feline leg kicking with each scratch. You really can’t trust anyone.

Kitty glares at him and mouths _traitor._

“You are quite childish, you know,” the other girl says, her mouth quirking but her voice flat. “Are all of you people from the colony that spoiled?”

“No, that’s just a Kitty Pryde Speciality™. Are all of you nomads that rude?”

She hums. “No, I’m afraid that’s just me.”

It’s been two hours, and only the first dozen minutes or so were spent fighting each other. The rest of it was spent in silence. Well, not silence - Kitty talked plenty as she buzzed from one corner of the bunker to another, commenting on everything from their taste in movies (who would own _We’re the Millers_ on DVD? The people who lived here half a century ago, that’s who) to their decoration (a dim orange pullout couch under an American flag, candles that were lit up before Kitty got here and made her feel slightly uneasy since phasing did not make her any less inflammable, colorful knitted grandma blankets). She even checked out the canned food on the shelves only to realize that there was next to no canned meat left. The girl obviously had something against vegetables. 

In the end, holding both ends of a conversation based on small talk proved exhausting, even for her, and she lied down on the couch with a book. She figures if the girl still planned to kill her she would have done so already: she may as well get back to reading _A Theory Of Everything._

At least she thought of bringing her book here. Otherwise, the next two hours (an optimistic estimation, which Kitty decides she would be keeping: being dark and broody is her unlikely companion’s role here) would be tedious. 

All along, blue eyes followed her around the room.

“It is rude to stare, you know,” Kitty adds. The girl quickly looks away to keep her eyes peeled on Lockheed instead. This is nice: now that she is not being uncomfortably stalked by her new roommate anymore, she gets to be the one staring. Something about turntables. 

A couple of hours earlier, the girl’s eyeliner had been applied in the usual nomad fashion: thick strokes covering the space from her eyebrows to the underside of her eyes, then vertical traits, like tears, down to her cheekbones. Now, with the sweat of the commotion, it is half wiped away, remnants leaving black trails all over her brow. Where her skin is untouched, it’s Snow White pale, only a slight smattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose revealing that she spends time under the harsh sunshine. Behind the makeup, her eyes seem too blue, uncanny by contrast. If she wasn’t trying so hard to be intimidating, men would have called her a doll. Here, in the half-light, all rugged edges and frowns, she is something else. A threat, Kitty corrects. That’s what she is.

A weird, nomad-fashion wearing threat, though. No way these spiked black shoulder pads are comfortable in any way, nor is the disturbingly revealing leather armor. In any other situation, it would be intimidating, but now, while petting a sleeping fennec with a knitted blanket around her shoulders, it’s plain silly.

The girl shifts and frowns deeper. “Now who’s staring?”

“Well, we already established that I’m spoiled, so rude isn’t that bad, considering,” Kitty notes, then realizes: “Wait. Are you blushing?”

The girl snarls. Kitty backs off and pretends to focus on her book. Every once in a while, though, she glances back at messy blonde hair and crimson cheeks. After a bit, the blush fades. After longer, Kitty finds her smiling down at Lockheed’s sleepy noises. 

It’s so cute Kitty wants to pull out the Polaroid camera she found under the television shelf and take a picture. Sure, it would get her killed, but what a way to go it would be.

“Do you have a name?” Kitty asks impulsively. 

The girl is startled but returns to her regularly-scheduled frown fast. “Yes. I have many.”

“Can I... Know it?”

“Why?”

Kitty shrugs. “We’re going to be stuck down here for the next two hours to two days. If we’re going to be sharing food, we may as well address each other by name. Don’t you want to know mine?”

“I already know yours. You’re Kitty Pryde.”

Kitty sits upright. “How do you know?”

The girl snorts. “You told me.” She mimics: _“that’s just a Kitty Pryde Speciality™._ Do you talk so much even you don’t listen to what you’re saying?”

“First of all, that was a terrible imitation, so if you wanted to make a career in comedy, you should change your plans.” The girl looks at her blankly: of course a career, let alone one in comedy is an antiquated idea at best. “Second of all, not all of us can make the brooding anti-hero look work, you know.”

“I’m not brooding.”

Kitty raises her eyebrows at her, and then the girl does something that surprises Kitty - something even more unexpected than trying to kill her, which admittedly isn’t all that out of the ordinary - she sticks her tongue out.

It’s so weird Kitty has to laugh. The girl smiles, and they fall back into a slightly more companionable silence after that, although she fidgets even more with her weird nomad outfit. 

Kitty turns five pages before the girl says: “Illyana.”

“Uh?”

“My name-- one of my names is Illyana.” She’s staring resolutely at her boots. 

Kitty doesn’t know what to do with that information. Illyana. Pretty. “What are your other names?” she settles on asking.

“Magik, for a while. Imperator Darkchylde, for a while.”

“You were a warlord?” Kitty asks because she can’t say the other thing, which is: you were a wife? One of the Immortan Belasco’s wives? With chains on your feet and around your hips whose keys are his alone?

It’s worse than being a warlord. At least the blood warlords have on their hands isn’t theirs. Kitty may be from the colony, and she may have only limited experience with any nomad who isn’t Logan, but she knows that much.

“For a while,” Illyana repeats. “Hard to work for a dead man.”

“Good riddance.”

Illyana smiles again, with teeth. Kitty shivers and pretends it’s from fear. 

Alright, so. The odds of Illyana being the one who killed him are fifty-fifty. Then again, it might just be how she talks: if anything, Illyana is an enigma. 

**wife** , _/ wʌɪf / , noun:_

  1. (colony use) a married woman considered in relation to her spouse.
  2. (citadel use) a person (usually female) who is the legal property of an Immortan and is forced to obey them, including, once they come of age, in relation to wishes of progeny.



They don’t talk much after this, although once in a while one of them will perk up with a question, like:

“You know I’m from Belasco’s citadel,” Illyana notes. “Where are you from?”

“Genosha.”

Illyana barks out a laugh, then frowns at herself. “Sure, koshychka. We all know Genosha is a myth people tell little kids. It doesn’t exist.”

“Not anymore,” Kitty says, very quietly, and she thinks about her dad. “Not anymore, it doesn’t.”

She doesn't talk about the acid floods that wrecked her home, or whoever was left there when the rest of them managed to leave. So few of them remain now.

The two girls are silent for a while again after that. Kitty honestly believes it is the end of that conversation before Illyana stands up, picking up Lockheed in her arms, to go sit next to Kitty on the couch. Bewildered, Kitty scooches over without even pointing out to Illyana how strangely she is acting until a gentle, pale hand is on her knee, and Illyana tells her she is sorry. 

Kitty leans against Illyana’s shoulder if only so she doesn’t see her blinking back tears. 

**home,** _/həʊm/, noun:_

the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household. ("the acid floods of Genosha forced many people to flee their homes")

 _also used as a saying:_ **at home:** feeling comfortable and at ease; feeling as if one belongs to a place or a person; in one’s own house. 

On the next day, Kitty wakes up with a creak in her neck and a mouthful of hair that isn’t hers. The musty air of the bunker covers her immediately, makes her want to sneeze. It's still raining somewhere else.

She blinks groggily to shake off the sleep from her head and tries to sit up a little, but gives up immediately, for curled up on the couch with her back against Kitty’s chest, under a particularly ugly pink-and-yellow blanket and with a frown even in sleep, is Illyana. Her body is warm and flush against Kitty’s. She breathes softly. 

Next to her head, Lockheed sits, prim and proper, and watches Kitty all too shrewdly for a fennec, especially one she found three years ago because it was digging through her garbage.

 _Shut up,_ she mouths to him, and he makes a weird, high-pitched noise that she swears could be laughter.

Turns out, Illyana is a sound sleeper - for some reason Kitty would have expected her to be the kind who kicks and turns in her sleep only to wake herself up - and makes these weird, really cute noises, so Kitty does what she has to: she picks up the camera under the couch to take a picture and then reads for an hour until Illyana’s eyes flutter open. 

“Hello, sunshine,” Kitty says, beaming.

Illyana kicks her off the couch.

**sunshine,** _/ˈsʌnʃʌɪn/ , noun:_

  1. (rarely used; archaic) direct sunlight unbroken by rain or clouds, especially over a comparatively large area. ("we walked in the warm sunshine")
  2. used as a friendly or sometimes threatening form of address. ("hand it over, sunshine")
  3. cheerfulness; happiness. ("their colorful music can bring a ray of sunshine")



“Anyone ever told you you’re kind of a bitch in the mornings?” Kitty says later, once Illyana has downed two-thirds of a pot of nasty, canned coffee mixture that Kitty herself only took a reluctant cup of. 

Illyana finishes the last third in a couple of gulps before answering. “Not to my face.”

“Ah, yes. The dark and crazy mysterious persona who might bring you into the woods to murder you with her giant sword thing. Got it.”

Illyana glares at her. “You’re not as nice as you think you are.”

For some reason, that makes Kitty shameful. “I’m sorry.”

Illyana keeps up the dark look only for a few seconds before her face softens. “It’s okay.”

“I don’t think the rain is going to be much longer,” Kitty says to try to cheer Illyana up, but it doesn’t seem to. If anything, she reverts back to glaring, except unlike yesterday, her frown doesn’t give her a scary air as much as a kicked puppy one. “But we’re probably going to have to wait further for the water to dry out once it’s over, so.”

“Yes! We have to wait,” Illyana agrees, too quick and a little too loud. “We should have a, uh, a sleepover? That’s what colony people call it, right?”

Kitty frowns. “You own pajamas?”

“No. Not really. Does it matter?”

“I don’t think you know what a sleepover is, Illyana.” She looks down at her feet, so Kitty adds: “Which is, uh, scandalous. Every girl should know what a sleepover is. It’s an experience one must have.”

Which is how they wind up in front of _We’re the Millers_ on the ancient television, Kitty holding Illyana’s hands and painting her nails bright pink. She found the polish in a half-demolished supermarket a couple of years ago, bottle dusty but intact. Decades-old nail polish may or may not give them both cancer, but frankly, that’s the least of their problems in terms of survival. Plus, for some reason, Illyana seems fascinated by the ritual of it all, her calloused fingers light against Kitty’s, her eyes riveted to their touching hands.

On-screen, Jennifer Anniston and Emma Roberts are kissing their fake son/brother. 

“People were so weird back then,” Illyana says, although she is not watching the screen. 

“Well, yes,” Kitty has to admit, “but to be fair, she’s just kissing him so he has experience so that he can, like, kiss his crush properly-”

Illyana cuts her off by scoffing. “Who needs experience for this? It’s not like it’s _hard.”_

“I mean, hopefully, at some point, it does get hard, if you see what I mean- ow! No need to actually hit me with a pillow, it could have messed up your nails, you blonde maniac.”

“Not funny,” Illyana simply declares and then turns back to being the perfect subject. 

Kitty finishes her left hand and starts on her right before she says: “Is this the part where we talk about boys?”

“Why would we?” Illyana looks genuinely puzzled.

“I don’t know. It’s not exactly like we did a lot of sleepovers, even in Genosha. Even if we pretend otherwise, colony people pretty much do the same stuff nomads do.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Illyana scoffs again. Then, softer: “Do you miss it?”

“Yes.” There is no point in lying. “Ororo - a friend of mine - and some others, they are trying to build a new utopia. They want to call it Krakoa.”

“Do you think they’ll make it?”

“Who knows? It’s not like they can lose anything by trying.”

When Kitty looks up from Illyana’s right hand, perfect from her pinkie to her thumb, the other girl isn’t looking at their hands anymore but at Kitty, blue eyes bright and searching, but resolute frown as always. “Yes, I guess so,” she says and leans forward-- closer-- so close Kitty can see all of the freckles on the bridge of her nose, an eyelash fallen on her cheek, parted lips-- closer-- 

And goes right through Kitty’s insubstantial body to faceplant on the couch.

“I’m sorry! Oh my god!” Kitty squeaks. “Shit! I’m sorry! I had no idea you were going to do that!” Illyana groans against the cushion, but Kitty keeps talking. “I’m sorry, I did _not_ expect you to _kiss me-”_

 _“I thought I was being pretty obvious,”_ Illyana complains, muffled by the couch cushions.

“Yes, well, I’m an idiot, alright!”

Illyana makes a strangled noise. It takes a second for Kitty to realize it’s a laugh, and then she has to giggle, too. 

“I’m sorry,” Kitty repeats. “I just- I can’t seem to figure you out.” Beat. _“In a good way.”_

Illyana finally sits up again, crosslegged on the couch on the other side of Kitty, her thigh so close to Kitty’s that she has to phase her leg just a little, not even paying attention as she does so. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

“No, no, you should have, don’t be sorry.”

Illyana tilts her head. “I should have?”

“Yeah,” Kitty says, fast and a little breathless.

This time, when Illyana scooches a little farther just so she can put both her hands on Kitty’s very solid knees (her nails must be ruined, ruined, but then again neither of them really care about that, do they?) and lean closer, lidded blue eyes and crooked teeth in a hint of a smile, Kitty is really careful not to phase out, even if her thighs are trembling under Illyana’s fingers, even if Illyana must feel her breath catching against her lips, even if she sighs a little as soon as they start kissing. 

Sparks are flying on-screen as a blonde woman walks into a warehouse half-naked for some reason. Kitty isn’t really paying attention.

**utopia,** _/ juːˈtəʊpɪə /, noun:_

an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. ("misplaced faith in political utopias has led to ruin")

In the end, apart from making out a lot and gasping into each other’s mouth, apart from long talks with Illyana’s head on Kitty’s knees with her golden hair all over Kitty’s hands, they don’t do much: something about being stuck in a bunker with a four-year-old fennec and nothing to eat but canned vegetables. They don’t talk much about the future, either, apart from absent comments. 

“I’m meeting friends - they’re making an encampment not far from here. If you want, when you’re done, I could come to get you,” Illyana mentions as offhandedly as one could when nothing they are saying is actually offhanded. “You could visit. You would like Roberto. He is also an idiot. And,” she says, scratching the fennec under his little head. “Rahne would like Lockheed.” 

“How are you going to go anywhere? Your car is ruined,” Kitty pouts. For a demonstration, Illyana disappears into a sparkling blue light, and reappears by Kitty’s side - it is a credit to Kitty’s years spent with weirdos that she isn’t startled. 

“You’ll think about it, yes?” Illyana asks, and Kitty says she will. Inside her ribcage, something is burning that feels almost like it could be love. Love in the time of the apocalypse-- Logan would scoff as if it was ridiculous, and then he would keep adopting more and more wayward kids and red-haired adults to pretend not to care for with his claws and teeth.

**warlord,** _/ˈwɔːlɔːd /, noun:_

a military commander, especially an aggressive Citadel commander with individual autonomy. ("the Wasteland was commanded by ferocious and imposing warlords")

They stay here for one more day than they need to, the pitter-patter of the rain long gone, stealing kisses and pretending they can live underground forever, until Kitty wakes up with Illyana’s arm draped around her shoulders and knows she has to leave today or she never will. She slips away from her grasp and puts on her boots, laces them slowly as Lockheed stretches next to her, yawning. 

“You can stay here,” she mutters in his furry ear that twitches in recognition. “I’ll be back.” He knocks his head against her chin and she specifies: “Yeah, I know, I don’t know when. But do you really mind?”

In the end, Lockheed stays with Illyana. Kitty doesn’t brush her hair away from her face as they do in the movies, but she does look at her for a little too long, a foot on the ladder that will lead her out, before she climbs up. The boxes of meds, safely tucked in her bag, hit her lower back roughly enough to leave a bruise when she manages to hiss and hoist her way out. 

Under her combat boots, the charred grass is dry and scrunchy: it has been two days since the rain stopped falling, after all. Kitty laughs at the wind in their hair and thinks about the photo of them both left on the table next to the camera, Kitty grinning next to Illyana’s sleepy, slack-jawed face, about the coordinates of the colony - of what may one day be Krakoa, a place even purple rain won’t be able to touch - on the back. 

Illyana is an enigma, and Kitty can’t be sure she is ever going to come to visit like she said she would. Illyana with her spiked all-black clothes and her nomad eyeliner doesn’t seem like the type to head to a colony with the rest of them. Then again, Illyana doesn’t seem like the type to lie, either.

And if she had wanted to leave Kitty behind, she thinks, she could have teleported out of the bunker long ago. That has to mean something, at least. 

**enigma,** _/ ɪˈnɪɡmə /, noun:_

a person or thing that is mysterious or difficult to understand. ("Illyana was still an enigma to her")

**Author's Note:**

> if you have anything you want to say about the fic, diy headache solutions or suggestions for marvel f/f ships i could do for the rest of the bingo, please leave a comment! and if not i'm always down to clown at @the-amazing-spider-bi on tumblr


End file.
